What am I up to?

I have been doing well with eating my vegetables and fruits and protein. I had a lot of spinach today! I have decided to do a 12 week Body for Life, starting yesterday. I did one before and only had moderate success. But I am trying again. Starting weight is 121.0 First goal weight is 115.0. I plan some modifications like increasing vegetables and maybe decreasing some of the carbs. Also I need more than one rest day, so I plan to combine two workouts (a weight lifting one and a cardio) into one day.

It is hard to think about how good I looked last summer and how I look now. Yesterday, I almost started to cry because as I was doing dumbbell bent-over rows to work my back, all I could think about was my back fat squeezing together instead of focusing on my muscles:( Sigh.

Oh well.

My food for today was:

1: cereal, milk, protein shake, coffee
2: watermelon, protein shake
3: chicken & spinach salad with dressing
4: spinach, brocoli & pasta salad
5: chicken drumstick, cornbread, hershey chocolate bar, sm. piece of brownie
Lots of water today

Yeah, I kind of goofed on meal 5. I know what happened. I was STARVING when I got home from work and while I was waiting for the chicken and cornbread to get done cooking I ate some brownie and a half of a chocolate bar. I just couldn't wait. Then I ate the other half after dinner because well I'd already blew it.

I HAVE to have food available when I am dieting because when meal times roll around, I am HUNGRY!

Also I want to try two new recipies a week. At the end of 12 weeks, I should have 24 new recipies. This week I made:
1: Spinach, chicken & avacado salad with homemade dressing (olive oil, lime juice, honey, paprika). Very yummy but it needed a pinch of salt.
2. Brocoli, spinach & pasta salad with feta cheese and lite italian dressing. Very yummy also.

Also I am teaching my 7-year old and 9-year old girls how to cook. They LOVE it! They get to pick out the menu and then we cook it together. They are really helping me in the kitchen. My 9-year now comes up and asks me if I need any help in the kitchen! I hope it stays that way!

New Post

Since I am home today with a sick child, I have time to write. I am feeling good mentally. Just like the economy, the fast downward spiral in my poor eating has slowed and is showing signs of improvement but in order to get it turned around completely it’s going to take some more effort on my part. :)

Once again Laura http://mamameltdown.blogspot.com/ has posted another blog that I want to mention about giving up sugar. I too need to cut out the sugar! I seem to be having some health problems that may be related to my poor eating. I think I have a yeast infection. Sorry if that is TMI. The thing is, in my 39 years, I have only ever had one yeast infection and that was specifically because I was on antibiotics for an extended time. Also I have this sore thing on my side. YUCK. I know. I am gross. It is tiny though. I think maybe it is from chaffing from my bra or something and that it got infected. It is taking FOREVER to get better. Anyway I am reading that skin infections can be cause by poor eating. It may not be my poor eating, maybe I’m just getting old and am falling apart! LOL But it got me thinking. WebMD says some of these things (yeast infections and skin infections) can be due to an impaired immune system. I’m sure eating more vegetables and fruits and cutting out the excessive sugar would help my immune system.

Here is my eating plan for today.

Breakfast: oatmeal (w/protein powder) packet (reduced sugar), orange
Morning snack: 1 oz. leftover steak, 1c vegetables
Lunch: ½ cup vegetables, Healthy Choice frozen dinner
Afternoon Snack: ½ scoop protein powder (no carbs), apple, ½ TBSP peanut butter
Workout
Post workout shake (1/2 scoop)
Dinner: 2 oz pork, mashed potatoes (plain) 1 ½ c vegetables, decaf tea

I know there is room for improvement in the meal plan. Like regular oatmeal instead of a packet and no frozen dinner for lunch (make homemade lunch) but like I said above, I am not there yet. This is an improvement over past days which might look like this:

Breakfast: frosted mini-wheats and waffle with syrup
Morning snack: sf yogurt, 3 hersheys chocolate nuggets
Lunch: Healthy Choice frozen dinner, cookie, 5 hersheys chocolate nuggets
Afternoon Snack: more Hersheys chocolate nuggets or other candy
Workout
No post workout shake
Dinner: 1 oz. pork, mashed potatoes, buttered bread, large ice cream Sunday

So as you can see, no wonder I’m having health problems! All carbs, hardly any protein or vegetables and too much junk. Gah! I’m going a little crazy with the chocolate. I’m not even enjoying it anymore. So my goal has been to eat AT LEAST two servings of vegetables and one serving of fruit a day, eat more (but not gobs) of protein and remember my post workout shake. Once I get this under control, I may get even cleaner than that. I am hesitant to get too strict with my eating because I think I have sort of “rebounded” from my strict eating when I do that.

Moving on to workouts. Right now I have an awesome schedule that I really like. It looks like this:

Week 1 (bodybuilding type schedule “A”)
Monday: Legs, Abs
Tuesday: Chest, 30 min cardio
Wednesday: Off
Thursday: Shoulders, Abs, 30 minutes of cardio
Friday: Back
Saturday: Arms, 30 minutes of cardio

Then I switch it up a bit.
Week 2 (Bodybuilding type schedule “B”)
Monday: Shoulders, Back
Tuesday: Legs, 30 min cardio
Wednesday: Off
Thursday: Chest, Abs, 30 minutes of cardio
Friday: Arms
Saturday: Abs, 30 minutes of cardio

Week 3 (back to bodybuilding type schedule A again)

Week 4 (full body circuit type training)
Monday: Full body circuit type weight training
Tuesday: 30 min cardio, no weights
Wednesday: Off
Thursday: full body circuit type weight training
Friday: 30 min cardio, no weights
Saturday: 30 min cardio, no weights

Week 5 I repeat the cycle only starting with bodybuilding workout “B”

So like this:
A, B, A, circuit, B, A, B, circuit and so on.

My current cardio of choice is running! Because it is Summa . . . summa . . . summaTIME!! I enjoy being outdoors as much as possible these days.

This schedule works because it has LOTS of variety, which I love. And it allows me to do some running which I also love. And it gives me 2 rest days per week, which my body really seems to need. There is not much cardio in there I know but it works for me. To be honest I rarely do ALL of my workouts but if I shoot for 5 days a week and only workout 3, I have STILL done 3 workouts per week which is still good for health, which is a BIG part of what I am going for. I write my workouts on my calendar a week in advance.

Oh, and since I got sick (flu) in the spring, I got behind in my training for the YMCA pump and run so I don’t think I will be able to do it but I still will do some of the other runs that I planned.

Geeze I wrote a book today. Just imagine how much writing I could do if I was home all the time! Well I’d better go.